


Thorny Rugosa

by k_rose_m (Flipkat)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/M, Fairy Tales, Fractured Fairy Tale, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2012-11-08
Packaged: 2017-11-18 05:17:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flipkat/pseuds/k_rose_m
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Alternian Briar Rose, with a familiar cast.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>From this prompt, for troll versions of Earth stories: http://homesmut.livejournal.com/11895.html?thread=23137143#t23137143</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thorny Rugosa

Once upon a time, there was a lusus who desired to celebrate the arrival of its long-awaited grub, and invited all the fairies in the land to attend, and give their blessings to the child. Now, there were thirteen who should have been invited, but the hive could only fit a table for twelve, and so the furthest-away fairy, who lived on a craggy mountain and was known to have a bitter disposition, went uninvited. After the feasting was done, the fairies came forth, one at a time, to bestow their gifts on the child.

- ****“She will lead wisely and well.”  
- “She will be clever.”  
-“Her joys will outweigh her sorrows.”  
-“She will have a STRONG spirit.”  
-“She will seek justice, and shun wrongdoing.”  
-“She will be kind and understanding.”  
-“She will have true friends.”  
-“She will be respected for her talents.”  
-“She will do great things.”  
-“All will be attracted to her.”  
-“She will see the truth clearly.”

But before the last fairy could give his blessing, into the room burst the spiderfey, angry at being left out. “I too have a gift for the girl!” she screeched. 

**- “On her eighth wriggling day, she will be bitten by a spider, and fall down deeeeeeeead!” **

Then, she absconded, as suddenly as she had arrived. In shock and horror, the guests began to murmur; would their blessings go to waste so soon? Her lusus bleated madly, and began to rush about. But the last fey stepped forward. “I cannot remove her curse,” he said, “but I can amend it:”

\-  **“She will not, die, but rather, sleep, for a hundred sweeps, and wake, by her true matesprit,”**

And so it was, that the girl grew up strong, spirited and clever, justly proud of herself and always laughing, and all who looked on her loved her. Though she never put on airs, her friends respected her as a natural leader, and nicknamed her “the Princess.” The girl’s lusus, being aware that spiders were harmless to her until her eighth wriggling day, made no great pains to keep them out of the house, but taught her to catch them in a cup and release them outside. Indeed, they did an admirable job of keeping insects from eating the gardens, for the hive was thickly planted round with bushes that grew roses the same dark-red color as the girl’s blood.

Soon enough, the girl’s eighth wriggling day arrived. She and her lusus were busying themselves cleaning the hive for a party that evening, when she spotted a sort of white tattered thing in the corner above her recuperacoon. Having helped spiders back outside since she was young, the Princess had never seen a cobweb indoors before. Imagine her surprise, then, when she climbed onto her ‘coon to swat it down with a broom, and a spider fell out of it and bit her! Instantly, she slipped down into the slime, fast asleep, her broom landing beside her with a clatter. Her lusus, which had been in the act of leaving the house to fetch flowers from the garden, fell asleep too, wedging the door open.

When her friends arrived for that night’s party, they found spiders hard at work spinning webs all around her tower-hive. The doors and windows were already thickly covered, and the webs would not yield to fire, blades, or psionics, and would only reluctantly release those who ventured too close. After the second person was freed, by dint of a half-hour’s chopping, tugging, and swearing, the group elected to hold the party on the lawn, half-heartedly hoping the noise would rouse her. Naturally, the evening passed with no sign of her, and her friends returned to their own hives, each promising to pass on the tale, so that, even after a hundred sweeps, she should not be unknown and friendless.

Over the course of many sweeps, the carefully-tended gardens went to ruin, surrounding the hive with a nigh-impenetrable wall of brambles. Every so often, a troll would come chasing the fable of the lovely girl trapped sleeping in a tower, only to be thwarted by the formidable mass of thorns; those who won through this obvious trap were foiled by the sticky webs that clung to the tower’s outer wall. It may be that some died there; it is certain that others managed to win free and return to tell their tale: the tower and its protections were true enough, so who could gainsay the presence of the maiden within?

Now, when the hundred sweeps neared their end, there was a lonely young seatroll living off the coast. He desired company, and decided to seek companions on the land. Being a student of history, he knew the legend of the beautiful girl who slept behind webs and thorns, and determined that he would seek her out, to satisfy, if not his romantic desires, at least his curiosity. He mounted his flying lusus and set out at once, traveling far inland.

When he came to the mass of brambles, he took no thought for it but as a land-marker, flying straight over it and on to the hive. Here, the spell had begun to break, and the once-strong webs were falling to tatters and blowing away in the wind. Noticing the sleeping lusus in the doorway, he dismounted and left his own to watch over it, and climbed to the top of the tower. Soon he came to the Princess’s room, and sure enough, there she was, as beautiful as the tales had told. Captivated, he could only stand a stare for a moment.

In that moment, the hundred sweeps having fully passed, the girl blinked awake, and immediately noted, with some alarm, a handsome stranger looking down at her. She thought briefly of clobbering him with the broom at her side, but his looks counseled another course of action, and, not being one for long deliberation, she sat up and kissed him. Thus was his heart caught in her tender web, and they were true matesprits all their lives, and so perhaps the spider’s curse had been a blessing all along.

**Author's Note:**

> (Were the last two fey in cahoooooooots the whole time? Who knows. But she was, indeed, BY her matesprit when she woke up, and she wouldn’t have lived long enough to meet him otherwise. Gotta watch the wording on those prophecies. Like, when he said “All”, he meant “ALL”; not just people, but troubles too, the equivalent of “May you live in interesting times.” And “great things”is only an indicator of scale. But by then, she had enough blessings to deal with it, and perhaps she would have been bored, otherwise.)


End file.
